MORE than a month’s rain has fallen during an overnight downpour across parts of Britain, causing flash floods. Further damp and windy conditions are expected with the remnants of Hurricane Bertha due to hit the UK on Saturday.

Hurricanes hit Great Britain only rarely — but the phenomenon is not unheard of. According to LiveScience.com, the only tropical hurricane to cross land there was Hurricane Debbie, which crossed the far northwest of the British Isles in 1961.

Eastern England has been worst affected by the current big wet, with some areas seeing more than 50 millimetres of rainfall in 24 hours.

Several streets in the Lincolnshire town of Louth were left under water and residents were evacuated, while downpours also led to waterlogged roads in Maidstone, Kent.

Some towns saw more rainfall in one day than in the whole of an average August, Met Office forecaster Helen Roberts said on Friday.

“[The town of] March in Cambridgeshire had 68.8mm of rainfall in 24 hours, while the average rainfall for that region in August would normally be 53.6mm,” she said.

The effects of Hurricane Bertha, which is crossing the Atlantic after hitting the Caribbean with gusts of more than 145kmh, would be felt on Saturday, Roberts said.

Forecasters said southern parts of the country were most at risk from “heavy rainfall, strong coastal winds and large waves”, followed by areas of northeast Scotland on Monday.

A spokesman for the Met Office said the transition of Bertha from a tropical to an extra-tropical storm was a “particularly hard one to forecast” but it was increasingly expected to affect the UK on Saturday.

“There is still some uncertainty surrounding this weekend’s weather, with the potential for heavy rainfall, strong coastal winds and large waves on Sunday,” chief meteorologist Paul Gundersen said.

Environment Agency flood risk manager Craig Woolhouse said: “On Sunday and Monday a combination of high spring tides and strong westerly winds bring a risk of large waves and spray and possible flooding to the southwest coast of England and along the Severn estuary.

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